Hobbit premiere mania 'was humbling' says Peter Jackson

Peter Jackson is bowled over by crowd response as Tolkien epic The Hobbit has
its premiere in New Zealand.

Peter Jackson described his rock star welcome at the premiere of The Hobbit as "humbling" after nearly 100,000 people swarmed central Wellington for the world premiere.

The normally reclusive director said: "This is a humbling experience. It will be the first time I will be seeing the movie with an audience, I only just finished it, so I'm very nervous. Once the film is out and a lot of people are seeing it, it becomes almost owned by the cinemagoers of the world. At the moment it just has left our hands."

Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett said she was so keen to reprise her role of Galadriel in the films that "I did stalk him (Jackson) a little bit". She added: "I've long been a fan of Peter's. He's incredibly free, he's a free thinker, he's a free associator and somehow as a filmmaker even though he's got this enormous trilogy on his shoulders, he's very, very nimble."

Most fans were in costume, watching as Blanchett, Elijah Wood and Martin Freeman treaded the red carpet leading to the Embassy Theatre, which was decked out as a hobbit house.

"The whole of Wellington seems to be here, it's extraordinary," Wood said as he made his way past chanting spectators.

The Hobbit was filmed at a hyper-realistic 48 frames a second rather than the usual 24. Director James Cameron predicted the innovation would spark a revolution in movie-making similiar to his own pioneering 3D work with "Avatar".

"We charged out ahead on 3D with Avatar, now Peter's doing it with the Hobbit," he told reporters, taking a break from his New Zealand farm where he is working on scripts for Avatar sequels.

"It takes that kind of bold move to make change."

The first movie "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" will be released globally in December.

The second, "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug", is due in December 2013 and the final chapter "The Hobbit: There and Back Again" follows in July 2014.